Us and Them
by DreamShadows
Summary: AU ending for 'Jump The Shark' with a much needed patch up scene. Limp!Sam and Protective!Worried!Dean.


Okay… So this is NOT my fault! **Sendintheclowns **and **Dawn N **poked me until I said that I would do a tag for 'Jump The Shark.' I totally said that I had to study for finals, and that I had a paper, and a book to read, and Statistics to do- but did they listen? Nope… And here's what came of it.

And because everyone knows that I can resist Limp!Sam...

Thanks to **sendintheclowns** for her wonderful beta job, I am incredibly grateful!

Disclaimer: **sendintheclowns **and I plotted to overtake the show, but sadly our dream fell flat. I own nothing.

Enjoy.

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'_I'm falling apart again  
And I can't find a way to make amends  
And I'm looking in both directions  
But it's make believe, it's all pretend_

So...  
Shed some light on me  
And hold me up in disbelief  
And shed some light on me  
And tell me something that I'll believe in'

Shed Some Light - Shinedown

XXXX

"Dean!" His brother's call pulled him from his thoughts as he stared down at the unmoving body of the Adam-Ghoul beneath him, and Dean pushed off the thing and stood. Looking over he saw Sam, eyes rolling, blood flowing.

Dean ran for the table, reaching for one of the bloodied knives that lay on the table, cutting the rope on first Sam's left wrist, then his right. Without looking down to see if Sam was moving, he went to Sam's feet and cut the ropes that held his ankles bound.

Looking up, the older man saw that while Sam was free, his brother hadn't moved that much, his wrists laying as if still bound, his chest heaving, and if possible his eyes rolling more than they had been seconds before. The slits of his eyes that Dean could see were glazed, from shock, blood loss or both, Dean wasn't sure.

He scrambled back around the table, sliding his hand under Sam's back and placing the other on his chest, and eased the younger man into a sitting position. Sam swayed, and his wrists bled harder at the movement.

"Sam?" Dean asked, hesitant, worried. Sam seemed to shake himself at the tone, and he looked up at Dean, pulling his arms closer to his body as if to protect them from further harm.

"M'okay." He mumbled, and Dean nodded, knowing that he didn't have the time to argue with the younger man at the moment. Looking around, the older man spotted cloth napkins in the basket of clean laundry by the couch and grabbed them, going back to Sam, and taking each wrist in his hands and wrapping them, trying to staunch the blood flow.

"Put pressure on those." He ordered, walking over to where he had left the Adam-Ghoul. With a clean shot, he took the thing's head off, feeling his stomach twist at the sight.

Walking around the rooms, he picked up the knives and everything he had touched before looking back to his brother. He looked up just in time to see Sam swing his legs over the table, and push off to stand.

The color drained from Sam's face faster than Dean had ever seen anyone pale before.

He stayed standing for a few seconds at the most, before his eyes rolled back, and his knees buckled. Dean ran for Sam, watching his descent to the floor, and caught him before he could hit and do more damage than had already been done.

"Shit!" He swore, lowering Sam so he was laying flat on the floor. "Sammy?" He called, reaching out to pat the younger man on the cheek, hoping the motion would wake him, but Sam only moaned softly.

Looking to where the napkins had fallen away from his torn wrists, Dean swore, "Damn it!" The cuts were deep and still weeping blood at an alarming rate. He reached over and snagged a towel from the basket, using one of the knives to slit it and ripped it into strips.

He bound the wounds tightly, wondering if he should take Sam to the hospital, wondering if he had lost too much blood.

Looking over Sam for any injuries he had missed, Dean grimaced at the darkening bruise nears his brother's ear. His attention was snagged on the blood that ran from a cut in Sam shirt, though, and reaching down, he pulled the tee up, wincing at the stab wound in his side.

It was ugly and torn, looked almost like someone had stuck their finger in it and played around. Looking back at the two bodies on the floor, Dean didn't doubt it.

Wincing when Sam whimpered, Dean used the remaining towel strips and tightly wrapped the wound, before standing. He knew that he should take Sam to the hospital, but there was no way to explain his wounds other than a suicide attempt, and if he were to tell them what actually happened he would no doubt be charged with murder.

_Was it technically murder when they were ghouls, though?_ He wondered.

Whatever the case, he knew that the hospital was out of the question, at the moment. If Sam got worse though, and he had to take a chance he would have to drive a couple counties over and pray that they didn't put two and two together.

He tried to wake Sam again, concern growing when his brother didn't even give him the quiet whimper this time. He pulled Sam over his shoulder, staggering under the six foot five in frame, two hundred plus pounds of Sammy deadweight.

Carrying Sam out to the car, Dean leaned over to let him slide so his feet touched the ground, and caught him as he started to fall, wrestling with the keys one handed to open the door. That done he slid his limp brother into the passenger seat and reached over to belt him in, before standing and shut the door.

He jogged back into the house reluctantly, not wanting to leave the younger man alone, but knowing that he needed to collect the weapons from their scattered places on the floor, before someone called the cops because of the shots he had fired.

Running back to the car, Dean threw everything in the back seat and slid into the driver's seat, starting the Impala in one fluid motion. Reaching over, he placed a hand on Sam's neck, his thumb over the pulse point, feeling his chest un-twist a little at the slow but steady rate of it.

XXXX

Carrying Sam into the room without being seen was a feat in itself. Not to mention the room was on the second floor, which had just made things all that much harder. Sam may have been thin, but he was solid muscle, and limp in his hold, and every step had made Dean gasp under the weight of him.

When he had finally gotten Sam into the room and splayed on the bed furthest from the door, he hadn't given himself time to catch his breath, running back to the car. He threw an old shirt over the weapons in the backseat, locked the doors, and then grabbed the 'Winchester' first aid kit from the trunk.

"Son of a bitch," he huffed with a disgruntled smile after running back to the room. Looking to Sam and seeing his brother pale and still on the bed, Dean's humor faded, replaced in equal parts with concern and fear.

Dropping everything but the kit he went to Sam's side, kneeling next to him. He set the kit beside the younger man, before reaching for the scissors and cutting off the tee shirt that had by now been liberally soaked through with enough blood to be unsalvageable.

Standing, he went to the bathroom, soaking towels in cool water and grabbing another dry one before heading back out to Sam. Settling next to his little brother on the bed, Dean got to work, carefully unwrapping the makeshift bandage from Sam's left arm, and washing the blood from it with one of the towels.

He methodically stitched the two long cuts closed, stopping only to wipe the still flowing blood so he could see. Sam only moaned a couple of times during the whole thing, not moving or giving any other kind of indication that he was conscious or remotely okay.

Dean sighed, and reached for the other arm, knowing that the wound in Sam's side was the lesser of the two evils. Every stitch he pulled through his brother's skin, and even small sound of pain tore at his heart, clenching guilt in his stomach, and making it wish it were him laying hurt in the bed, not Sam.

_Not_ his baby brother, who had already been through too much in his life.

Who had been through too much this past _year_. He had gone through watching Dean be killed, had gone through months alone, keeping a strangle hold on the last thin line to his sanity. He had gone through Dean coming back only to be condemned for doing everything in his power to stay alive and to keep killing the monsters that lived in the dark.

Sam had been through too much in the past year. He had been through too much _alone._

If Dean really thought about it, he hadn't been there for his brother since his death. It didn't matter that he was physically alive and _there_ now, he hadn't been acting like a big brother for months.

He had been taking everything out on Sam lately. Pushing him away with more conviction and power than he had after their father had died. Sam had done nothing to deserve the loneliness, the _condemnation_ that Dean and everyone else had been doling out to him for months.

It was no wonder he had turned to a demon. Not that he condoned the fact that Sam had been sleeping with her, but she had been giving Sam what he needed.

The demon, _Ruby_, had been the only one besides Anna that had shown Sam any kind of compassion and caring lately. Ruby was doing Dean's job as the big brother and caretaker, and no matter how much Dean wanted to deny that fact, it was true.

He was just sorry that it took his brother getting hurt for him to see that he had had his head shoved so far up his ass since he had come back from Hell.

He had been telling himself that he had been trying to protect Sam. The truth was that he had been trying to protect himself, not willing to care about someone, not willing to let someone care about _him_, only to have them ripped away again.

He wasn't about to do that again.

He was going to be the big brother again, was going to be there for Sam whenever the younger man needed him.

"D-n?" A small voice slurred, pulling the older brother from his thoughts. "Hurts." The small exclamation tore at him, and Dean reached up from where he was bandaging the wound in Sam's side to rest his hand on Sam's neck.

His eyes were small slits, glazed over with pain, but showing so much raw pain and fear that Dean doubled his vow to be a good big brother again.

"You're okay," he soothed, reaching with his free hand to grab the bottle of pain killers they stored in the first aid kit. Shaking two out he placed them on Sam's tongue, grabbing the bottle of water on the bedside table, and helping Sam sit up a little in one fluid motion.

Sam grimaced as he swallowed the two small pills, whether from the taste or pain, Dean couldn't tell. He lowered Sam back to the bed, settling his hand back on Sam's neck.

"You're gonna be fine little brother." He breathed. Sam just watched him, not offering anything more than eye contact, too weak to do anymore. "Big brother's here, got you all patched up. You're gonna be okay." The words seemed to calm Sam, and Dean kept up the steady stream until Sam's eyes started to drop closed again.

"Just sleep little brother, I'll be here when you wake up." Relief flashed through Sam's eyes before they shut completely, and Dean felt the look like a punch.

The look made him realize that he had never said those words to Sam. That since he had come back, he had never assured Sam that he was indeed back and not going anywhere.

He had known that Sam had stayed up some nights just watching him, making sure that he was still there, that it hadn't been a dream. That should have given Dean some sort of insight into just how bad things had been, to just how bad they _were_.

Sighing, he scrubbed a hand over his tired eyes, and settled in to watch over Sam. He dragged his hand to Sam's chest, just wanting to feel the steady rise and fall that told him Sam was alive, that he would be okay.

_That Dean would have the chance to make everything up to his brother._

"Bitch." He whispered fondly.

END.

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A/N: So what did you think??? A little sappy, and I added in the much needed limp, because you know that Kripke never knows when to add it!

And I do know that Sam has been acting kind of stand-off-ish to Dean in this season, and I know not everything lies on Dean… But did you ever notice that when Dean gets into big brother mode, he tends to ignore everything but, _Sammy's hurt, _and _it was my job and I failed to protect him_?

Anyway, I hope you all liked this.

Take care,

DS


End file.
